Acccording to Dan Armstrong, chief executive of Beanfield Metroconnect, the telecommunications company that won the Internet tender, “Having this sort of capacity available to residents will allow for a whole new world of applications we haven’t even conceived of yet.”

South Korea has launched a nationwide broadband upgrade to rid themselves of 100Mbps service for $38 a month. By the end of 2012, South Korea intends to connect every home in the country to the Internet at one gigabit per second and slash the monthly price to just $27 a month.

Cologne, Germany: Netcologne, a German city carrier, is looking to launch a service that will allow consumers to buy 1 Gbps connections in the city of Cologne sometime this year. Nearly 70,000 homes in Cologne currently buy broadband from the service provider.

Amsterdam: GlasvezelNet Amsterdam (GNA), BBNed and InterNLnet have conducted a pilot of 1Gbps symmetric fibre-optic connections. The trial was carried out in the Amsterdam districts of Osdorp, Zeeburg and Oost/Watergraafsmeer. This Open FTTH effort has been rolled out in Amsterdam and is available to about 100,000 households. Reggefiber, another Dutch carrier is going to upgrade all its networks to 1 Gbps in 2010. Reggefiber is active in > 40 cities, half a million homes passed with 320,000 homes connected, thus making it one of the largest 1 Gbps deployments anywhere.

“Given that the Internet has become an indispensable tool for realizing a range of human rights, combating inequality, and accelerating development and human progress, ensuring universal access to the Internet should be a priority for all states. Each State should thus develop a concrete and effective policy…to make the Internet widely available, accessible and affordable to all segments of population.”

ABI Research indicates that among the three broadband technologies, 65 percent of worldwide fixed broadband consumers subscribe to DSL, 25 percent to cable, and 11 percent to fiber broadband services. Fiber subscribers are increasing fastest, showing a compound annual growth rate of 20 percent from 2008 to 2014.

New Zealand government has set plans to roll out 100 Mbps broadband access to 75% of households by 2019.

China plans to increase fiber optic broadband penetration and broadband coverage with five years plan from 2011 to 2015.

Malaysia aims to cover 1.3 million homes with high speed broadband network by the end of 2012.

China is giving a boost to the worldwide wireline broadband base with its massive fiber-based program led by the Chinese government, says Infonetics. China has set a 20Mbps benchmark for all broadband subscribers, where most today receive 2Mbps to 3Mbps at best,” notes Stéphane Téral, Infonetics Research’s principal analyst for mobile and FMC infrastructure.

Mobile broadband subscribers passed wireline broadband subscribers in 2010 (558 million vs. 500 million), says Infonetics Research. The number of cellular mobile broadband subscribers jumped almost 60% in 2010 to 558 million worldwide and should top 2 billion by 2015. WiMAX subscribers grew 75% in 2010, with more strong growth ahead, reaching 126 million in 2015.

According to Ericsson, smart phones generate approximately 10 times more traffic than normal feature phones, while a mobile PC user generates 100 times more traffic than a feature phone. Worldwide smart phone sales will reach 468 million units in 2011, a 58% increase from 2010, according to research firm Gartner.